I clicked on another article. Then another. Then another.
The pattern repeated itself with almost alarming consistency.
Award nominations. Playoff appearances. Career milestones.
Photos of Thane holding trophies, posing for promotional campaigns, and standing beside teammates while confetti rained from the ceiling behind them. Every article seemed to introduce a new accomplishment I had somehow never heard of.
The ridiculous part was that none of it felt like bragging. The information was simply there.
Objective.
Undeniable.
The man I'd met in a neighborhood bar had built an entire career while I remained completely oblivious to it.
I found the interviews next. Those fascinated me more than the statistics.
Numbers told me he scored goals.
Interviews told me who he might be.
In one article, he spoke about community outreach programs and youth hockey initiatives. In another, he discussed leadership, teamwork, and the responsibility that came with wearing a letter on his jersey. A magazine profile focused on his work with children's charities and local education programs.
That part made me smile. Of course it did. Even before I knew any of this, he had spent part of my birthday asking questions about my degree program and listening as though the answers genuinely mattered.
The endorsements surprised me.
The follower count surprised me even more. Millions. Actual millions. I clicked over to another page just to make sure I hadn't misread it.
I hadn't.
A strange feeling settled in my stomach as I stared at the screen.
The money was impressive, sure. The fame was harder to wrap my head around. Every article I opened seemed to reveal another layer of a life that looked nothing like mine.
The man belonged to a world so far removed from my own that it almost felt unreal.
I leaned back in my chair and rubbed a hand across my jaw.
Every click seemed to reveal another layer I hadn't known existed.
More interviews.
More articles.
More photographs.
More evidence that the version of Thane I'd met represented only a tiny fraction of the life he actually lived. And yet the strangest part of all was that none of it felt like the most important thing I'd learned about him that day.
The thing I kept thinking about was the man sitting behind that microphone, trying not to let the world see how scared he was.
I stared at the laptop screen for several more minutes, clicking through articles I barely absorbed.
At some point, I picked up my phone and found myself on his Instagram page. Judging by the follower count, I was approximately one of the last people in Seattle to discover it existed.
The page looked exactly like what I should have expected from a professional athlete. There were action shots from games, photos with teammates, community appearances, charityevents, and enough professional photography to make me wonder if the man had ever taken a bad picture in his life.
The comments beneath his most recent post were harder to look away from.
